Risk for Love

 

We risk ourselves for the things that we love. Lately I have been feeling like a regular Indiana Jones. I have a tendency to forget things. Most recently I have been forgetting my keys in Ruby’s car and find myself with a need to lock the door to the apartment but unable to lock the door from the outside without a key. My mission was to make it to the Family Film Festival (a festival Remnant supports that makes it possible for families to watch free children’s movies during the week days), but I could not leave the apartment unlocked all day long. But I organized a plan to lock the apartment and leave for the Family Film Festival. You see Ruby and I live on the second floor and if I could just find the courage to step over our railing on our back porch and jump down, I could go and play with kids all afternoon. I prepared for the worst and I expected the best. I packed a snack thinking that if I hurt myself on the way down I would at least have something to take my focus off the pain. I put a Band-Aid in my bag thinking that one would be enough. I texted my friends to let them know the plan in case anything should go a rye. I prayed for the best.

 

Looking over the edge, I contemplated chickening-out but did not want to face the alternative of missing the Film Festival or leaving the apartment vulnerable to theft. Jumping was my only courageous option. I stepped over the railing, kicked my shoes down below into the shrubbery. I figured if I could somehow shimmy down the railing, I could swing to the railing of my neighbor’s porch below. I let my feet go. As I was hanging there off my railing, in plain sight of my neighbors, I thought to myself “Once again Kristen, you did not think this one through.” At this point it was too late to turn around. I did not have the arm strength to pull myself up and over the railing. My only choice was to let the wooden railing slide through my fingers until I was low enough to stand on the porch railing below me. My feet caught the railing and I jumped down into the safety of a flowerbed.

 

But we risk it all for the things we love. Am I right?  I love the Family Film Festival. I get to meet tons of kids and parents, paint faces, play corn hole, and spread the word about the new church that meets in the movie theater.

 

Well jumping from a balcony may not be much but it was the riskiest thing that I have done since I up and moved to California.

 

I also had to do the same maneuver the week after that when I forgot my keys again. At least that time I had a spotter.  

Cheers to safety!